Hard to describe this album without getting carried away. Nonconnah is husband and wife duo Zach & Denny Corsa who previously recorded as Lost Trail but changed name about the same time they relocated from North Carolina to Tennessee. Long before I moved to America, I’ve been obsessed with the big open spaces there and art that explores it like Twin Peaks, H.P.Lovecraft, WIlliam Least Heat-Moon and classic drone albums like “Stone Circle” by Wood-Land.
Here is something that encapsulates all those visions. A wide open space where huge walls of guitars brush up against drones that sound like signals from the deep woods. There’s fragments of songs, esoteric speeches and an underlying sense of mystery, as well as kindness.
Take the epic post-rock of Godspeed! You Black Emperor then immerse it in rainbows and forests until it starts to spin on the spot like a dervish, joyously. No matter how many times I play it, it never ceases to delight.
“Unicorn Family” is an epic beast, recorded over four years at three different studios as well as in various natural and abandoned locations. Helping out along the way we have the likes of like Dylan Desmond (Bell Witch), Jad Fair (Half Japanese), Archie Moore (Velocity Girl, Lilys, Black Tambourine), Chris Thompson (Eric’s Trip, Moonsocket), Brian Deck & Ben Massarella (Red Red Meat, Califone, Modest Mouse), Alex Greene (Reigning Sound), Cody Drasser (Afterbirth), Tim Prudhomme (Fuck), Angel Marcloid (Fire-Toolz) and Stuart McLamb (The Love Language).
I know I’m the label guy but would you judge me if I told you it was a masterpiece? Because I am telling you.
Was Ist Das? has never done a reissue before but we found the perfect place to start. Very proud to be reissuing Human Greed’s classic 2008 album in a new special edition with the previously unreleased companion album ‘Moonsuite’ on the second tape. The plan is to follow this with similar treatment for “Fortress Longing” and “World’s Fair” and then at the end to offer a nice box to put them all in.
With guest appearances from from David TIbet (Current 93), Julia Kent (Anthony and the Johnsons), Clodagh Simonds (Mellow Candle, Fovea Hex) and Fabrizio Palumbo (Larsen).
The music of Human Greed creates a haunted world which owes as much to classical music as it does to the otherworld landscapes of gateway openers like ‘Soliloquy for Lilith’, ‘Astral Disaster’ or even ‘In den Gärten Pharaos’
Reissuing this feels so right as the reason I run this website and this label is because of the strong buzz I get from introducing people to music they love. Its the satisfaction of the match-maker, and I’ve long been evangelical about Human Greed so this was a chance to put my money where my mouth has been so long. Hopefully most of the buyers are new to Human Greed and not just existing fans double-dipping for the “Moonsuite” album.
“Black Hill occupies a realm that is somewhere between the gorgeous drones of Stars of the Lid and the haunting and solemn “Symphony No. 3” by Henryk Górecki… This is powerful stuff and takes a while to fully digest it. The oily darkness that the music conjures up gets deeper and deeper with every listen, a resonant and otherworldly tremor that is at once human and sublime.” Brainwashed
We are honored to bring you the debut release from Myriad Valley.
How to sum this one up? It’s the sort of psychedelic, devotional, folk horror, acoustic drone music that brings to mind The Third Ear Band, Popol Vuh, Natural Snow Buildings, Flying Saucer Attack and the soundtrack to Blood On Satan’s Claw. Usually all at once.
It has that huge, monolithic sound yet at the same time seems devoid of any digital trickery, seemingly assembled from ritualistic folk instruments. It’s a world of mountaintop dawns in remote regions, dark woodland cacophonies and hymns to the sun.
I was so spellbound by the album, I quite deliberately avoided asking the artist for any technical details or credits, and was delighted to see a similar lack of detail on the artwork they provided.
Only 35 tapes made, though its also available in digital
We’re so freaked out about this music that we’ve also commissioned a second album from Myriad Valley.
Everybody who meets Suzuki Junzo loves the guy. Everybody who has seen him live drops their jaw on the floor. So when this February he suffered a intracerebral hemorrhage and a subarachnoid hemorrhage everyone was very worried. Junzo is now in a rehabilitation hospital and unable to tour or record music. Proceeds from this compilation will all go towards helping him financially but we want this to do more than that. This album is also one giant get well card, a huge sign of love from the world to Junzo. We love you Junzo and we know you got this but we’re all there cheering for you every step of the way.
Download only compilation sold on a seperate Bandcamp so that funds can go directly in Japanese currency to Junzo’s nearest & dearest.
1.20 Guilders – Wind Is (alternate take) 2.Sir Plastic Crimewave – Space Blues Devotion 3.Old Million Eye – Real Nightime 4.Jumble Hole Clough – For Junzo 5.Takeyari Shunta – My Lost City 6.Mienakunaru – Invisible Hammerblow 7.Carlton Melton – Chop Shop 8.Sky Burrow Tales – Jam For Junzo 9.Dead Sea Apes – Parasite Rex 10.Howie Reeve – Columbo Repeats 11.Mik Quantius – Power 12.Mike Vest – Zoid 13.Identiy Broker – One Night In Byker 14.Suzuki Junzo & Snakes Don’t Belong in Alaska – The Order of the Ash Ra Solar Tempel 15.Black Holes Are Cannibals – Night Loner 16.Bart de Paepe – Rare Dromen 17.Lucy Adlington – The Double 18.TOMO – Vielle Electronica 19.Eric Arn – Side Nine 20.Kawabata Makoto – Beyond The Nanoverse 21.Frontière Dorée – Culpability Tango 22.Mienakunaru – (I) 23.Ashtray Navigations – The Apothesis of Vavavoom (live at Cafe Oto 20th March 2022) 24.Jyonson Tsu Band – German Zoo 25.Nick Jonah Davis – One For Junzo 26.Empty House – Every Little Step 27.Haramindarangure – Hofu Weed
released June 14, 2022
Artwork by Jake Blanchard Organized by Ned Netherwood WAS54
Murgatroyd Hall is a short story written and read by Ned Netherwood. Recorded in the great outdoors of Arizona and then mixed with a field recording from the house in Northern England that inspired the story.
WAS57
Author’s note: This was originally planned as a 1 track digital release, 2 track CDR version and then an expanded 2 track subscriber-only digital version. However, a strange anxiety stopped me making the CDR version and it was never sold. It fits into the framework of an unfinished short story collection themed on ‘Weird Pennines’ that I started
The subscriber version features a longer version of “Murgatroyd Hall”. The audiobook part is the same but the background sound carries on another 7 or so minutes. Then there’s a remix of the same length by The Lamp.
A shimmering fog of globally infused psychedelia, a demented whirl in the fog of all oceans, this album is just exploded with strange color, just like tape art (also by Jake)
Winter Hacker was a special temporary release from The Hawkshead Bedroom Orchestra. The track was to have been included on their forthcoming debut album but was considered too long to fit the running time and reluctant to edit it. they decided upon releasing it as a, pay what you want digital release for just a few days on Was Ist Das?
A strange deep psychedelic sludge of a track but with faintly submerged musical motifs, it has the strange psychedelic cacophony of “In Menstral Night” era Current 93 cocooned in the final post-chord growl of a Sunn O))) concert.
Part of our agreement with The Hawkshead Bedroom Orchestra was that this track will be made private after the weekend. So while it will no longer be available to purchase after then, all who do purchase it will have it in their Bandcamp collection and be able to re-download it.
The artists have also asked that I don’t divulge their identities at this point, though when the debut album drops, all will be clear. In the meantime, you’re welcome to guess but I’m unable to comment..
WAS53
released February 4, 2022, it consisted of just one 15 minute track titled “There is music in the isle” and was available to purchase on Bandcamp for just 3 days.
We have been quite in awe of Mr.Doss ever since getting the connection via James Jackson Toth. Josh is a exceptionally talented song writer and when he gets together with a band of cohorts, the sparks fly in a classic low-fi rock n roll way.
“Distant Memories” continues that same basement echo, outsider rock n roll session feel of his previous album for Was Ist Das? “Don’t Let Your Time Pass You By”.
You can feel it in the bass-playing, this gutsy rumble (even though two different players do the duties) that blows the dust out of your speakers.
The first album by The Lamp was a limited edition of less than 15 and in accordance with the artist’s wishes, all masters were permanently deleted. For the follow up album, a download has been permitted but both download and tape were only on sale for one day (June 20th 2021). As a result, only four cassette copies are out in the wild.
in accordance with The Lamp’s “leave no trace” policy, no photos of the tapes were taken but this is a mock-up of what they looked like
The first album was simply a DJ set that got out of hand and accidentally became something else, but this is the first deliberate album. Side one a strange, scratchy ritual with weird rumbles and mumbles. Side two a stretched out synth symphony. Both tracks apparently have concepts behind them but the artist declines to share them.
Just like the Makoto album we put out recently, here is another artist caught in the lockdown and something exciting and unexpected happening, Nick’s ideas for the 3rd 111H album met the landscape of his relocated home of Spain and took a few surprise turns in his imagination. Sure, there’s that good time classic rock feel of the cream of 111H but look at the map, look how Africa and Spain almost touch like God and Adam’s fingertips in Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”? Something swept North over the Straits of Gibraltar and touched this record in a way the planned Nashville sessions couldn’t possibly have.Don’t take my word for it, though, listen to James Jackson Toth:
Oh, sure, it’s an outstanding record, one that will silence any doubts anyone might still have about this former psychedelic noisenik’s ability to write and perform rousing, classic-sounding rock and roll songs.
But, see, I’ve been hearing the sketches of these songs for almost an entire year. Because they were originally intended to be recorded for the third One Eleven Heavy album, to be made in Nashville this summer, Nick emailed these tunes to the band members to solicit our feedback and ideas. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and our transatlantic quintet (average bandmember commute: around 2500 miles) had to postpone our recording plans.
By now I’d listened to Nick’s demos a dozen times. I figured out a few cool guitar parts to play to accompany his, learned his arrangements by heart. I was wondering, with excitement, how we were going to pull off some of those crazy time changes and deep layers of percussion. So when Nick told me he was planning to release these songs on a solo album, I knew that I’d probably never get to sing the sweet harmonies on the breezy and exuberant “If I Were A Sawmill,” or get to chug along with the propulsive, crackling “City of Grit,” or jam on the heavy-lidded Doors-meets-Canned Heat choogle of “Ode To What.” In my mind, I’d already claimed these songs for One Eleven Heavy.
Maybe One Eleven Heavy will get to perform some of these tunes live at some point; I dunno. Nick will probably write twelve more just as good or better by the time the five of us finally reconvene to record our third album. But it won’t be these songs; songs that I have grown, over a short period of time, to know intimately, songs I have driven around listening to and singing along with, songs that set an intimidatingly high bar for my own contributions (as yet unwritten) to the One Eleven Heavy record-that-wasn’t. I don’t mind telling you that when Nick sings, on opener “If I Were A Sawmill,” “let’s get on the road tonight,” I get a little lump in my throat. Will we ever get to do this again?
Listen to Pino Carrasco if you must. My prediction is that it’ll be your favorite record of the year. It’s mine, too. But, you know, to hell with this guy. To hell with this insane, impetuous, mischievous, stubborn, charming, gentleman guitar wizard, and a pox on this beautiful and inspiring music that should have been One Eleven Heavy music.
The next time Nick and I have to share a bunk bed in some godforsaken “band hostel”—and I hope very much that we do—I’m totally gonna wait till he falls asleep and then hack his Twitter account and follow a bunch of Christian pop punk bands. Then I’m gonna draw a caricature of the Kool Aid Man on his face.That’ll teach him to make solo albums, the bastard.-James Toth, July 2020-
Also, to celebrate we made 30 eco-friendly, fair-trade, high quality Belle Canvas t-shirts. Available bundled with the LP or just with a download of the album.
